No Sunlight on the Omnibus

One Christmas tradition Congress could do without is the broken process of passing the annual Omnibus Spending Bill, which we recently did right before the holiday recess.

Every December Congress fights and argues over spending and never seems to be able to pass the necessary appropriations until the very last minute.Â There is panic and threats of government shut downs and reduction in essential services.Â And they always threaten the essential services, as if there is no waste they could possibly eliminate instead.Â

This past December, right on cue, the administration warned about dire civilian defense department layoffs if the money didn’t come soon.

And so at the very last minute the Omnibus was rushed through in a whirlwind, just in time to save the day.Â Members of Congress had less than 24 hours to read the nearly 3,500 page bill before a vote was taken.Â The bill was supposedly much too important to waste time reading it.

I feel differently.Â I feel the important bills are the ones we should take especial care to closely examine.

However, we are led to believe that if the Omnibus bill failed, horrible things would have happened.Â But the situation is a setup that ensures our government spending balloons every year just as the elites and special interests dictate.Â The vast majority of Members of Congress don’t actually know what the money is being spent on until after passage and by then it is too late.

To address this flawed and corruptible process I have proposed a very simple change called the Sunlight Rule, which mandates that bills be presented to Congress and staff for review in their final form no less than 10 days before they come to the floor for a vote.Â This would allow the representatives of the American people time to read the bills before having to make a decision on them.Â Every now and then you hear criticisms of congressmen and women for not reading the bills.Â That is a problem, however in cases like the Omnibus spending bills, a few hours is not nearly enough time to comb through and evaluate the hundreds of pages they contain.Â The rules do not currently specify any amount of time that must be allotted for Congress to read or deliberate any legislation before a vote.Â That needs to change.

Congress should read the bills.Â But to do that requires an appropriate amount of time.Â More appropriately phrased, Congress should be ALLOWED to read the bills.Â And no member of Congress should, in good conscience, vote affirmatively on a bill they haven’t fully analyzed.

I am hoping that in the New Year more of my colleagues will resolve to take a stand for honesty and due diligence in representing the people of this country and that we can enact the Sunlight Rule.Â With it, we will be a wiser, more open Congress and our decisions in Washington will be more deliberative and fully informed as they ought to be.

The Five Ten Coalition (5/10C) is an effort to to start a grass-roots campaign, to restore the balance between the States and the Federal Government. The Founders wrote checks and balances into the Constitution. One of example is the power to declare war, given to the U.S. Congress and the leadership of the armed forces given to the President.

Another important balance is the one between the Federal government, and the governments of the several states. The issue of states rights was very important to the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. He argued for the amendments we know as â€˜The Bill of Rights.â€™ The â€˜Tenth Amendmentâ€™ strikes a crucial balance between State and Federal power.

Amendment 10 – Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited
by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The powers of the Federal government were limited by design see â€˜Section 8 Powers of Congress.â€™ The Federal government is the glue that joins the states into a nation. The Federal government settles disputes between states, provides a unified defense, foreign and trade policy. According to the Constitution the Federal government should only handle things that must go into and between the state and national borders. War, immigration, postal system, currency and banking. The states are prohibited from making laws in these areas, according to the Constitution. All other powers are reserved to the States or to the people, the Federal government is prohibited in these areas.

Over the years the balance has been slowly chipped away by all three levels of the Federal government and acquiescence of the State governments. Congress wrote laws infringing on the powers of the states the Executive signed them and the Supreme Court allowed the laws whenever challenged and the states went along with it most of the time as well.

This is a well known problem, many candidates for national office, representatives, senators and presidents, have run on platforms of reducing the size of the federal government. Unfortunately when they get into congress they do as all politicians do, they try to gain more power, in congress the only thing they can do is spend money and write laws. Once they get into office they use the office to get re-elected by passing laws for supporters and spending money in there home districts or states. When presidents get into office they also go back on their word and sign whatever law congress sends. They either go along with their political party or opinion polls of people who are only told what government wants to give them not what they will take from them to pay for it.

We cannot expect them to change themselves, they can never be convinced to give the power back to the states as the constitution originally intended. There is only one constitutional way to take that power back with or without the approval of the Federal government.

Article. V. – Amendment

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary,
shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution What this means, is if enough of the state governments decide to amend the Constitution, they can do so without the approval of the Federal government. The U.S. Congress does not have a vote, the president is not needed to sign it into law, it is the Supreme Law of the land when: â€˜ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof.â€™

If enough people lobby their state government, their state senators, state representatives and support representatives, who will propose and vote for resolutions for a convention to propose amendments, this can be accomplished.

I think the amendment should do what the tenth amendment was originally intended to do. Something like this, -Amendment 28 (Proposed 12/29/2007) The powers not specifically delegated to the Federal government of the United States by the Constitution, nor specifically prohibited by it to the States must be relinquished to the governments of the several states within five years of ratification of this amendment. The Federal government may only supersede if a direct and substantial relationship to an enumerated power exists. Disputes to be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court which may be overruled by vote in the three fourths of the state legislatures.- (needs work but you get the point)

If we can gather the support of the special interest groups at the local and state levels, convince them that support of this amendment will further their individual cause. Those for abortion and gay rights in blue states and those against in red states make up majorities in their respective states, if this passes those issues will be decided on a state by state basis and their vote will count for allot more in state or local elections that in a national election.

Gun rights, drug policy, abortion, gay marriage, all the things that divide the country could be settled on a state by state basis this would make it easier to agree, or agree to disagree when necessary.

This would also make government more efficient, by spreading the responsibilities. Currently the Federal government is responsible for everything from trade policy and road building to education and health care and are doing a poor job at most of it. They might be more efficient if they could concentrate on their constitutionally enumerated responsibilities.

State taxes would increase but federal taxes would drop at a corresponding level. The overall effect on and individual citizen from a tax perspective would be a slight decrease due to the increased efficiency at first. Once the state governments take over they will be free to have high taxes more social programs, spend more on schools and roads others will spend less and have low taxes, each will be responsible to the people of the state at election time.

What I propose is not a radical change to the constitution, it is a restoration, this is what people like Thomas Jefferson and the Tenth Amendment originally intended. The Tenth amendment is just as important as the Fifth and the First and the rest of the amendments in our â€˜Bill of Rightsâ€™.